In a rundown Los Angeles apartment building—the titular Starlite Terrace—Patrick Roth unfurls the tragic linked stories of Rex, Moss, Gary and June, four neighbors, in a sort of burlesque of the Hollywood modern. In each of their singular collisions with fame, Roth’s dark prose presages a universal and mythical fate of desperation.

In “The Man at Noah’s Window,” Rex shares the story of his father, a supposed hand double for Gary Cooper in High Noon. In “Eclipse of the Sun,” Moss, who lives in fear of the next holocaust, awaits a visit from the long-lost daughter he has tracked down. In “Rider on the Storm,” Gary, a rock drummer and born-again Christian, who “almost played” on the Turtles’ 60s-hit “Happy Together,” strives to find escape from his personal guilt. And in “The Woman in the Sea of Stars,” June, a former Hollywood studio secretary whose husband once cheated on her with Marilyn Monroe, makes the best of a disconnected life until she emerges reborn through ashes strewn in the illuminated swimming pool of the Starlite Terrace.

In each of these four tales of wanna-bes and almost-weres, Roth’s L.A. portraits unfold in rare style, and, in Krishna Winston’s masterful translation, the hopeless, loveless perversion of an Ed Ruscha-inspired California becomes a compelling pageant of all-American grotesques that is not to be missed.

1. The Man at Noah’s Window2. Solar Eclipse3. Rider on the Storm4. The Woman in the Sea of Stars

Review Quotes

Sarah Hunter | Booklist

“What stories can the little people tell? That seems to be the question German author Roth hopes to answer with this story collection set in a Los Angeles apartment building. . . . For those who love basking in rambling tales, and who are fascinated by Hollywood, there is plenty here to love.”

Ron Slate | On the Seawall

"Once you have read the first story in Starlite Terrace,you know that an ultimate dramatic scene will also appear in the next three tales — and yet, Roth usually exerts enough counter-tension on the reins not only to create surprises but to allow the unstated to simmer."

Times Higher Education

“Every now and then one reads a book and feels overwhelmed by it. This is that kind of book. It involves four stories narrating miraculous events that at first sight seem unrelated yet turn out to be subtly interconnected. Four people’s everyday lives suddenly shift from the mundane to the transcendent—just like this magnificent book, which rekindles one’s faith in the redemptive power of writing.”

For more information, or to order this book, please visit https://www.press.uchicago.edu